Wednesday, October 14, 2009

This is a delighful article written by Monica Crowley for the Washington Times. Take the time to read the whole thing. Ms. Crowley points out a few of the storms brewing on the horizon for the Democrats as they try to move forward on health care reform, the war in Afghanistan and cap and trade.

In health care, the most liberal members, such as Nancy Pelosi and John D. Rockefeller IV, demand that a public option be part of any health care bill. Five Democrat senators on the Senate Finance Committee recently voted against the public option in the Baucus bill. Muriel Kane, at The Raw Story explains why:

According to Intershame.com -- a site which aims to draw attention to misbehavior -- those five senators have collectively been the recipients of over $19 million in donations from health care, pharmaceutical, and health insurance companies over the course of their Congressional careers.

It gets better. Senator Joseph Lieberman recently announced that he won't vote for the Baucus plan.

The Connecticut Independent announced yesterday he couldn't support the health-care bill Senator Max Baucus just passed through his Finance Committee. Mr. Lieberman doesn't sit on Finance, but his vote was considered one of the 60 needed on the Senate floor. Along with specific gripes -- particularly the tax on high-value health plans, hardly popular with Connecticut's insurance industry -- Mr. Lieberman criticizes the bill's overall size and scope, saying Democrats are trying to do "too much" in a recession. He also complains that it would "raise the price of insurance for most of the people in the country."

If he doesn't like the Baucus bill, he will certainly hate anything that comes out of merging it with the Dodd bill and HR 3200. Stay tuned. This is going to get very interesting.